Case: The Sealetter Matter

[Plezercruz]

Fortunately for Spike, the locks on the Sealetter are not the most secure, and within minutes the door is open. Outside, the policeman assigned to guard him has cheated to the end of the hall and is listening in on the conversations above. Every few minutes he glances down the hall at the door he's supposed to guard.

Spike waits until just after one of these glances from the guard, then sidles to the door of cabin 14, where the two bodies were found. As luck would have it, the door doesn't squeak! He closes the door quietly behind him and looks around. The bodies of Cynthia Prestwick and Lugs Booty seem to have already been picked up by the morgue, and there doesn't seem to be anything of interest left in the room

Timing his move once again, Spike makes his way up the stairs to the Captain's cabin. Captain Morgan is not there. Spike rummages around the cabin and mentally takes note of anything strange. In a glove box he finds a .38 automatic pistol, loaded. On an itinerary on the wall, he finds that some of the voyages of the Sealetter are labeled "pickup" while others are not. Looking through the nautical charts, Spike notices that the pencilled-in course the Sealetter travels to Nantucket is not a straight line, but rather an L-shaped course out to sea and back, which takes the ship a full 10 knots off course before steering back toward land. Not being a seaman himself, Spike isn't sure what this means.

Spike also finds several lists of the ship's crew complement, and finds that well over half the crew joined the Sealetter in the past two months. Captain Morgan himself became the commander of the vessel about two months ago.

Spike is starts flipping through the passenger and cargo manifests when he hears voices. Captain Morgan and his first mate are coming up the steps!!

[Fuzz]

Meanwhile, outside on the dock Steve Amberey arives on his old rusty bicycle. Steve leaned his bike up against Robert's new sedan with an evil grin on his face, mumbling about rich brats. With this he turned and walked up the gang-plank like he was going into a fight.

[captainkirk]

"Not so fast Ambercroy," the grinning detective hears coming from behind him. He turns to find Butch Malone leaning against the light post, lighting a cigarette, and speaking through gritted teeth: "Seems we're both a little late to this shindig, which means Faraday's already on board, just looking for excuses to arrest everyone sight. You'd best stick with me at least until we get past him." Malone fixes Ambercroy with a his well practiced hard boiled squinty eyed stare.

[Fuzz]

"Well shot. I hate haveing to deal with Faraday." Looking back at the ship Steve says "should we just wait and see what rich boy comes up with?"

[captainkirk]

At this Butch smirks and says half jokingly, "Well, I suppose we could, but I'll bet Mr. Greenstreet would actually like to see this case solved. Most sailors I've seen in my day don't exactly speak moneybag's language."

As they're walking into the ship Malone adds, "And if we're lucky, Spike hasn't gotten himself locked up just yet..."